Congress' denial of funding to close Gitmo is being portrayed as a serious blow to the Obama administration's plans to close the facility. Ken Gude of CAP, whom I spoke to earlier regarding Congress' complicity in continuing Bush counterterrorism policies, also had some thoughts on the recent conflict over closing Gitmo. He said that Congress' decision wasn't necessarily a serious blow to the administration's plan, and that the fact that the administration hadn't set up a definite plan for what to do with the the detainees was a genuine problem.
“The administration was, I think caught unprepared for how big of an issue this was going to be in Congress, how fast it was moving there, and how it outpaced their policy development," Gude says. “It was always the administration's intention to present a complete policy. So the hurdle set up by Congress is one that will be fairly easy to clear.”
-- A. Serwer
